Topic: Is Gold the root of all evil? (Read 7012 times)

Yep, gold is just gold, although contributed a lot of human suffering, but it's just a metal, the demon is inside humans.

I just wanted to see a discussion about this, and you guys brought up nice arguments.

Gold is just gold. It is the same as rice or meat. We are the people trying to posses the goods. So we are the evil.

I think the colonizers went for gold and other resources.

Why havent they colonized the islands near africa? They did that around 1700-1800.

For the natives they went in the 1600s, it was much closer, but they didnt because they knew that a small island doesnt matter.


They wanted the big land, the gold, and the other resources.

The native americans largely died from disease I think because they were distributed widely not tightly packed in towns so much as europeans had lived.  So they had never dealt with that level of viruses we bought over with us and our cattle.
    I dont consider gold at fault for this kind of colonial take over, not even the motivation.     The Spanish did get alot of gold but its known that they gained not so much as first thought as the price dropped, the work done was not as profitable due to excessive supply.  I think the real damage was because they could get away with conquering and taking lands, they had the superior technology.   If they went north to California they would have found gold on the floor but what good would it have really done them.  

  The slave trade was more of a motivation or reward for their evil actions as free labour is a versatile product, the Spanish just made a quite large mistake of wasting slave labour on mining a metal already available in excess.  There is already gold everywhere so gaining even more of a metal not that useful quickly feeds back as not especially profitable, its only a companion to useful industry and its usage as money that gold becomes worthwhile.   By itself gold is not the source of wealth in a society.
 Just like all these dollars they print, we'll all be worse off when they add up and realise we got too many for actual business done, because its not doing anything useful to print money.  We've wasted our time like the Spanish empire did, gold was less evil there as it became obvious with a dropping price the signal was sent not to keep mining.  Where is the signal in our dollar system to stop this route and do something more productive, in this case Chinese labour is being wasted under a communist regime except they are not slaves and I wonder how upset they might be when the dollars (trillions of treasury debt) turn worthless

I think its been blood diamonds that are more of an issue.   Gold is spread around the world, almost every country has a bit though most mined has come from south africa because a geographical feature but its available everywhere to national companies pretty much.   Problem with diamonds is that a militia can control sections of a country and become a massive player in that market because diamonds are far more rare, sporadic occurrence so you get wars and many evil acts from fighting violently for that country.

  GOld is really about productive industry competing for efficiency, mostly the trouble is straining it from the dirt well not controlling the whole area.   I was reading earlier how the military dictatorship in Burma centres or is funded by the trade in precious opals which they sell to China.  So many decades of tyranny are being paid for by that control of a mining area, other parts of the world dont get these stones so its a localised control by violence and corruption pretty much.     Even the drugs trade is more fairly distributed then this, innovative you could say with the shipping feasibly from anywhere hot almost

There are more precious metals than gold and silver, which are way more precious and expensive: Platinum, Germanium, Paladium, Iridium ,etc..

But only Gold (and to some extend Silver) were the main players in the past. So that I why I specifically asked why gold has such an evil aura around it, not just precious metals in general.

It's merely an opinion, my friend. I personally don't like gold, although many do. I have more expensive tastes. I like black onyx, diamond, etc

True, physical mines do create more jobs, but at the same time we need people in other professions that are always available, such as being farm hands or becoming technicians. Even though jobs are created via mines, there should be alternatives for those jobs, even if they are not in the same industry.

I personally think that available jobs should be more diversified, but there are issues with the supply/demand economic models that prevent that from working as intended.

It's a shame that we have to destroy large areas just to create more jobs for people. (However I do realize it isn't as simple as that.)

So you're saying the actual mining operations don't use huge amounts of electricity. In my opinion the legit mining operations are far worse for the climate, than bitcoin mining.

However gold mining does create more jobs than bitcoin farms.

That chart starts when the Federal Reserve was established in 1913.   This is not the start of gold or money, some say it was the beginning of the end. 

Exactly, a farmer is not evil because he performs work.  If he did not work, maybe he is heart broken becomes a drinker and just threw away his crops or did not bother to harvest or left them to mice and rats to eat then millions will starve who rely on his work.  Society would have to stop because their jobs or life relys on that source of food being reliably provided by these self motivated workers who earn money or gold.  
If the farmer becomes uninterested in money, all of society actually suffers.
   You can see some of these affects from communist or war torn countries, farmers are invaded by interests not reliant on money, they use force to gain assets.  Suddenly mass starvation even in arable healthy lands becomes possible.   This is far more evil then any profit for doing work.

  He wants gold because food goes off, its mass production and he must sell so demand and supply is behind a price, rather then politics or force this is actually a good in society

Yes, exactly this! If we would introduce potatoes tomorrow as a former of currency, I am sure that these potatoes would become a source of all evil. You can't live with any format of money since it is apparently very evil but we couldn't have a world operating in any way without this "evil" money.

All this just to conclude that there is no problem in money, gold or potatoes,  but in us, the human beings!

I agree with you here.

IMO greed is an inherent human flaw - it doesn't matter whether it's gold in this case or money or assets - humans naturally have a want for more and more "stuff" and will work and fight for it appropriately. Saying that gold is the cause of greed (and that greed is the root of all evil - which I'd argue is not the case) is wrong.

but there are others, i don't know if they are reliable with the 1914 date, but as you see is even above 400

gold never remained to zero or very low value, even at beginning like bitcoin

400 what?  Can you share this "all time chart"?

A person with an honest job is ultimately working to satisfy the wants of others but is usually primarily driven by his desire for money.

Do you feel that such workers of past, gold-based economies were guilty of evil?

because gold started with a high value from the beginning(see the all time chart, it was at 400 since the beginning) so this seems that people really wanted good even before, so disperately that the demand was crazy already

Why do you think only gold makes people greedy?

In my opinion any form of money is the problem for all kinds in issues today we are facing. It could be either oil, gas, bitcoin, gold, paper money or property. If any one got more of these things than many evil minded people will be behind them to take the benefits. For example If you see how developed countries put pressure on oil rich countries to take the full benefits.   

Gold is not evil in itself. It is the hand of our evil. Or greed makes is want more, and we will go to the ends of the earth to get more. Gold is simply a commodity.

He means the greed. Gold makes people greedy and let them do evil things.

So do you think it's evil?

Some coins require nothing but an internet connection and a normal pc can transact while idling, basically making useful work from otherwise wasted computer time